Barron's Picks And Pans: Regeneron, Axalta, Alleghany And More

• Featured stories this weekend in Barron's ponder the prospects for a leading biopharmaceutical company, a manufacturer of automotive paints and a little-known insurance holding company.
• This issue also offers thoughts on economic reform from an outgoing CEO of a multinational industrial products manufacturer.
• Another feature article discusses reasons for a breakup of a leading consumer goods company.

"Regeneron: The Best Bet in Biotech Stocks" by Jack Hough suggests that Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc REGN has created tools and technologies that help speed the drug-discovery process. See why Barron's thinks three new potential blockbusters and a packed pipeline of other treatments can boost the shares of this biopharmaceutical company up to 35 percent in a year.

In "Eaton's Sandy Cutler Has a Blueprint for Growth," Robin Goldwyn Blumenthal points out that the chief executive officer of Eaton Corporation, PLC Ordinary Shares ETN is preparing to turn over the reins. Cutler, who sees the need for comprehensive fiscal reform, shares why government debt must be cut and corporate taxes lowered in order to reboot the U.S. economy.

David Englander's "Painting a Pretty Picture at Axalta Coating Systems" makes a case for why shares of Philadelphia-based Axalta Coating Systems Ltd AXTA, a leading manufacturer of paints and coatings for cars and trucks, could rise by at least 25 percent over the next year. According to Barron's, there is now an opportunity to buy in at Warren Buffett's price.

Related Link: Top Investment Ideas From Top Hedge Fund Managers For the Year Ahead

Shares of little-known insurance holding company Alleghany Corporation Y have nearly doubled since Barron's wrote about it in 2011, says "P&C Insurer Alleghany Invests by the Book" by Andrew Bary. As the book value of this Berkshire Hathaway–like outfit has grown 8 percent or more annually for the past 11 years, its shares have followed, and they may be poised for more gains.

In Leslie P. Norton 's "Time to Break Up P&G? Ali Dibadj Thinks So," a household products and beverages industry analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein shares why he believes that consumer-products giant Procter & Gamble Co PG is a prisoner of its culture and should break up. He also discusses some of his picks and pans among other widely held consumer-products stocks.

Also In This Week's Barron's:

• What investors will have to deal with until the U.S. presidential election
• Why the Internet of Things is a dead end for now
• Whether it is time to consider inverse exchange traded funds (ETFs)
• Reasons for the scarcity of special payouts
• Whether BB&T Corporation BBT has room to grow
• Preferred stocks as a way to secure a higher yield at relatively low risk
• Five top dividend-paying blue chip stock picks
• The key stock to a Hong-Kong billionaire's plans to consolidate his infrastructure assets

Disclosure: At the time of this writing, the author had no position in the mentioned equities.